“Call of danger. It’s a much different pitch and frequency.”
I hear a twig snap off in the distance and immediately Elijah is out of his chair jumping from the porch and running off into the darkness like Daniel Day-Lewis on the Last of the Mohicans movie poster.
“Elijah!” I call out to him but it’s already too late.
Seconds later I hear a scuffle in the distance followed by a loud grunt.
The wolf howls again. Now I’m really scared.
What if something happened to him? What will happen to Ellie and I alone out here in the wilderness?
It’s time to get tough. I grab a shovel and stand in front of the door. I’m not letting that monster get inside the house. He can have me, but not without a fight.
I hear something dragging through the grass. I bend my knees and prepare for battle.
This is the way things are out here. It’s only taken me a week and I’ve already gone feral, back to the way humans used to live.
I squint my eyes and watch as I see a shape in the distance. I tighten my grip on the shovel, my knuckles white.
And then I see his beard. “Elijah!”
I release the shovel and run to him. He hugs me tight in one arm as he drags my old boss by the feet with his other hand. He’s got him hogtied.
“Is this the coward?” he says.
I look once just to make sure.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“I can drag him out back and tie him to a tree if you want. The bears will have him finished off by morning. I can even cover him in honey to make the process go faster.”
I can’t believe his words, but then I remember…he’s a mountain man. There’s another kind of justice up here. Nature is the judge and jury, and in this case nature is Elijah. My old boss entered a world he wasn’t prepared for, but Elijah was. And Elijah won.
And when you lose in this world you lose big.
The power Elijah has and what he’s willing to do for me are beyond words. I don’t wish harm on anyone, but I do know that if my old boss had got what he wanted he would have been swift and final in his dealing with me. Elijah has saved me…twice. I owe everything to this man, but he never makes me feel that way.
Everything he does he just shrugs it off like it’s something a real man would do. But I know that’s not the case. Not in 2018. It’s not the kind of times we live in. You can’t even get a man to open the door for you, let alone vanquish your enemies before you.
“Can we turn him in to the police?”
“That’s not how things are done up here,” Elijah says. He pauses. “But if that’s what you want then that’s what we’ll do.”
He’s given me a feeling of control back when I felt I had none. He’s injected a sense of power into me when I was empty.
“There was a phone in your things when I found you. Does it work?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. I step inside and find it, a remnant of my prior existence. This was me just one week ago. How little I need such things now.
“Here it is.”
“Can you see if the battery’s still working?”
I fire it up. There’s about fifteen percent still left.
Elijah steps inside and comes out with…my day pass for the mountain?
He holds out his hand and I hand him the phone.
He hits the speakerphone button and dials the number to the lodge on the pass.
“Breckenridge Resort, Jonathan speaking.”
“Jonathan, there will be a man arriving on a sled in about twenty minutes. He’s tried to kill a woman in the hills. He’s wanted for a whole host of charges.” Elijah reaches inside my boss’ pocket. “He has ID on him so he’ll be easy to identify. The police will be there to get him.”
“Sir? Is this a prank?”
“I don’t play games when it comes to life and death and protecting my women. Just be prepared because he’ll be approaching your backdoor on a sled soon.”
Elijah hangs up and then calls the police, telling them what’s going to happen. He doesn’t ask or make suggestions, he tells them. He gives them the story and I hear the police say they’ve been looking for him and that there’s a reward out for him. Apparently he’s a fugitive now as he skipped his pre-trial hearing. Elijah ignores the reward talk. I guess money doesn’t matter to him anymore. Logs burn better than pieces of paper with dead presidents on them up in these parts.
Elijah hangs up with the police and goes out back and removes an old toboggan. He ties my old boss up to it tight and shoves him off down the hill.
“I thought the resort was that way?” I say pointing to my left and not down the hill.
“It is, but there’s a trail right here that winds around. It’s faster and will run him right by where the wolves hunt. They won’t try and stop him. He’ll be too big and too fast, but it will sure put a scare into him.”
“You sure put a scare into me when you went off running after him like that,” I say.
“Never be scared when I’m here. I’m here to protect you. No one can harm you when I’m by your side. Not now and not ever.”
CHAPTER 10
Trinity
We re-enter the house and slide under the covers together. The fire’s still cracking just a bit. Ellie’s fast asleep and Elijah gets out of bed quickly to slide a divider in front of her bed, just in case.
We slowly remove our clothes and he holds me in the bed. I feel so safe and this feels so romantic. We’ve had sex before, but now it’s time to make love.
He kisses me tenderly and I feel that big beard of his tickle my chin and neck. I run my fingers through it and am reminded just how manly he really is, not that I needed any kind of reminder.
I slowly move my hands across his body, feeling each muscle as he ripples and flexes unconsciously. It’s like an anatomy class as I get to feel how the perfect male body moves as he moves his position to kiss me on my neck, collarbone, and back up to my lips.
His head moves back down, but this time lower finding my breasts. I arch my back and press the back of my head into the pillow.
He kisses a trail back up to my lips and then mounts me. I feel the crown of his cock at the entrance of my opening. I’m already drenched and ready for him. He slowly slides his log inside and my eyes close as I experience his size all over again.
But this is an entirely different kind of experience. Instead of a hot fast fuck, this is slow and tender. It’s a deeper connection between two people, and two worlds. He’s from my world, but he left it. Now I’m leaving that same world behind, knowing I was brought here by fate and now I’m his and he is mine.
His hips rock back and forth slowly as I feel his dick along my walls each time it enters and then pulls back. It’s like a wave is washing over me, or better yet through me…inside of me.
I hunger for the fill and long for him each time he rocks back. I need him inside me. I want him inside me.
I open my eyes and he’s staring down at me. It’s a hungry look as it always is, but there’s something different to it. Some tenderness to the fury in his look.
I know I’ve found my man for life and he’s found his wife.
I reach for the sides of the bed and feel my climax begin just as he fills me with his seed.
Moments later he pulls out of me and is down on the bed lying next to me. I roll over and cuddle up to his chest.
“I have to tell you something,” I say.
“Anything,” he says.
“I’ve felt different since that first time…out in the woodshed.”
“I felt it too.”
I giggle, but then catch myself. I don’t want to wake up Ellie. “Not that kind of different,” I say. “Something inside me.”
“Something more than lust you mean?”
I playfully slap him. “Yes, but not that. I mean something biological. I’ve never been in this position before, but they say when a woman knows she just knows. I know something happened out there that day.�
�
“What do you mean?”
“I think tonight when you saved my life, you saved two lives.”
“No one’s hurting you or Ellie.”
I laugh inside. My little speech isn’t working. “Okay, three lives.”
“No man can hurt me,” he says.
“Correction…four lives.”
His head rolls over on the pillow and he looks at me with wide open eyes. His pupils dilate as he rolls over onto his side.
“You mean to tell me your?”
I nod my head.
“But how do you know?”
“I just do. I mean I can go into town and get a test, but I’m sure.”
“Or you can do it up here, without a doctor. I don’t need another man looking at you there.”
I smile. I just love his protectiveness. I love the way he wants me all to himself and I know he’ll only ever give himself to me.
“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” I say. “Right now I just want you to hold me in your arms.”
He leans back in and pulls me in close. We both know neither one of us will be able to sleep. We’re both dreaming of our future and how quickly our lives have changed since we met each other. Out of all this chaos that found me just over a week ago, I’ve been able to find calm. And I found it when I found him.
And now that I found him I don’t ever want to lose him, to lose this thing that we have.
This is my life now. It’s a life I never could have imagined. And now I could never imagine anything else, because anything else wouldn’t be here with him.
CHAPTER 11
Trinity
I open my eyes and squint at the morning light coming in through the window.
Once my eyes are fully open I see him. He’s there next to me, staring at me.
“Have you been like that all night?” I joke.
“Except for a few minutes, yes.”
I can see he’s dead serious.
He backs out of the bed and gets down on one knee.
“I’ve been waiting all night for this, but really I’ve been waiting my whole life. I started working on this last week, but I didn’t want you to find out.” He opens his hands and inside is a small wooden box. He opens the top and inside is a gold ring!
“I found the gold in the stream a couple years back, but it never had a purpose in my life until you arrived. And the diamond? It’s my great-grandmothers. She got it from her husband. He was a big, strong man from South Africa. Like me, he found his treasure but it meant nothing until he had his real life woman, his true treasure, to give it to.”
I’m speechless. I can’t believe where the gold and diamond that went into this ring have come from. How much love has been put into them. How they’re so personal, and perfect.
“I want you to wear this now. To be the keeper of these gems until one day Mother Nature calls for them back. But even when that day comes I’ll still be by your side. I want to be with you now and forever. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But all I can think about now is our future. How we’ll live off this land and build a family. But that family can only happen because of you. Will you marry me, beautiful?”
I nod my head. “Yes,” it comes out silently. I say it again. He slides the ring onto my finger. A perfect fit.
I lean forward as does he. We hug and then kiss.
“Yay!” Ellie says. I hear clapping in the background and know she’s there. Soon she’ll have another little brother and sister to play with, to share this life with, and to love just as Elijah and I will…up here in the mountains where we belong…together.
EPILOGUE
Trinity
One month later
Ellie and I spent the last month working on our dresses.
There was one day we took off though…the day I went into town to see a doctor. He confirmed my pregnancy and told me everything I needed to do to make sure I’d have a healthy baby. We told him what we eat and what we do and he kind of smiled. Strangely enough my “alternative” lifestyle was probably the healthiest for having a child. Part of the process is staying calm throughout the pregnancy and that’s exactly how things were up here in the mountains.
It’s a bit of an oxymoron to think it’s peaceful when you’re surrounded by wolves and bears, but when you’ve got the biggest alpha of the bunch at your side I guess the other animals just know not to try anything. As crazy as it sounds they respect Elijah and know he and his family are off limits. Mess with the bull get the horns as the saying goes. And Elijah was the biggest baddest bull this side of the Mississippi.
We stand in the forest as Ellie carefully reads the wedding vows we prepared for each other.
I had asked Elijah when we came up with the idea if this type of wedding even “counted.”
“If we’re here, it always counts,” he said.
He had a way of being romantic without even trying. I think it was just his confidence and assuredness in us and our family that always melted my heart and made me know that no matter what everything was going to be perfect.
“You may now kiss the bride,” Ellie says.
I watch as she closes her eyes tight and try not to laugh. She said kissing boys is “icky.” I would definitely disagree…at least when it comes to her father.
She was excited about the idea of a sibling. She was already planning on all the things they could do and Elijah was already planning on just how he was going to add to the cabin.
But first, we needed to make this official.
Elijah lifted my veil and looked at me one last time as two single people. Once he kissed me we’d be officially together forever.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you,” I say. It’s impossible to fight back the tears, but thankfully he takes my mind off of them as best as possible when he leans in and his lips meet mine.
“Is it safe to look?” Ellie says.
We both laugh.
“Yes, it’s safe, sweetheart.”
Her eyes open and she breathes a sigh of relief at not having to watch us lock lips.
“Ladies and gentleman of the forest. I now present you Mr. and Mrs. Elijah and Trinity Arbor!”
A wolf cries out in the distance.
“Wow!” I say.
Elijah just smirks.
I’ve answered the call of the wild and now there’s no going back, not that I’d ever want to.
Now, like Elijah and Ellie I’ll live here free and wild just as nature intended.
And just as nature intended we’ll be welcoming a new addition in the coming months. It’s the reason we live in the first place…to have a family, and when I found him I found mine.
I can’t wait to grow it as big as possible. Mother Nature can’t be the only mother up in these parts…not if Elijah and I have anything to say about it.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Elijah
Seven years later
I stab the pitchfork in the ground. “Can I help you?” I say.
“Sir, we’re here on behalf of the Colorado school system. We hear you have some children here that aren’t in school.”
I say nothing. Who do these guys think they are just coming onto my property like this unannounced?
“Is that true, sir?”
“What’s true is you all are trespassing.”
I feel Trinity’s arm on my shoulder and I’m reminded to stay calm. She’s done a lot to mellow me a bit these last seven years, but I still have that fire inside. Living out here does that to you, especially when you have a family to protect.
“Sir, all we’re asking is to see if the children are being educated. It’s for their own good.”
“Well, what’s for your own good is—”
I feel Trinity’s grasp on my shoulder tighten.
“It’s okay, honey,” she says. “Would you gentleman like some lemonade?”
“Yes, ma’am. That would be great. It was harder to get here than we thought.”
“And a
lot longer too,” the other man says.
That’s by design. I don’t want nosey people up here in my business.
Mountain Man: A Single Dad, Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 36) Page 4
